Loose Leaf Notes

1. I use the pen to get a diagnosis as well as for the treatment.

2. “My page was too white / My ink was too thin / The day wouldn’t write / What the night penciled in…” Leonard Cohen

3. I have to be early if I don’t want to be late. On-time doesn’t happen.

4. Banksy is a genius.

5. “Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars and generally is the voice of people who aren’t listened to. Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.” ― Banksy

6. Latest good tidbit from my quantum physics class on the hammock: “The truth is, life is not hitting your weak spot, you are projecting your weak spot onto life… Yet not everything you stored was negative. You held on to some positive things from the past. The problem is that they are not happening anymore, and that is disappointing. If you go back to the same place where you saw the butterfly, and it’s not there, it become a negative experience. Understand, that you have just made life a lose-lose situation. If anything reminds you of what bothered you before, you lose. If you are not getting to reexperience what you liked before, you lose.” -Living Untethered by Michael Singer

7. I’m nostalgic for pens / like the one that wrote purple / when I kept a note going / to my girlfriend all week / When I wrote cursive in high school / about a boy named Richard / Dear Diary, my brother is a jerk…  More from Purple Ink HERE.

8. Now purple ink / is like purple haze / A classic riff from the ‘60s / Now pencils are rare / They don’t fill the landfill / We used them until / they disappeared.

9. Believing that poetry is a healing art, Katherine and I were initially interested in using poetry as legacy and memoir. We were both called by poet David Whyte’s description of the stage of life we are in as “apprenticing ourselves to our own disappearance,” a time when one is obliged to ask ‘Who am I, apart from my history and the roles I have played?’ -More from Mining the Gold of the Inner Life @The Mindful Living and Soulful Aging Retreat HERE 

10. The closing gratitude circle at the Mindful Living and Soulful Aging retreat was an opportunity to ring the singing bowl and send our thoughts out into the universe.   Someone read a poem. Martha sang a song that came to mind… long have I waited for your coming. Robin recited words from one of her original songs. “I’m a lighter person and a brighter soul for other people,” shared one retreatant. “I feel I’m completely nourished and supported by the universe,” said another.” More from What Rings True HERE. 

11. Open Slowly: Poetry is a reverse psychology / A Van Gogh gold mother lode / turned starry night / Read from a mirror / in a rear view / Tied together / with a strand of moon

12. My poem Remedy for Depression is in the latest issue of Artemis. Cover art by Cynthia Wick.

13. Open Door Invitation HERE. /Thirteen Thursday